The Black Madonna (23 page)

The sharp trilling ringtone of her mobile vibrating on the hard mahogany of the hotel bedroom desk was like a knife scraping on a blackboard. Nazreem snatched for it greedily, and held her breath when she saw Marcus’s number indicated, her hunger for good news acidly laced with a frisson of fear. Just because it was his phone it did not mean he was using it.

It was not until she pressed ‘answer’ and heard his voice that she allowed the first wave of emotional relief to break over her. At least he was still alive.

‘Marcus! What? Where …? Are you all right? What happened? Where did you go? I thought …’

The questions poured out of her uncontrollably, barely giving him time to answer.

But the voice on the other end of the connection sounded calm and composed. ‘It’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t worry.’ Maybe too
composed
. Don’t worry? How could he say something like that? Without explaining.

‘Don’t worry? What do you mean don’t worry. Where have you been? What happened?’

A pause.

‘It’s a long story. But I’m all right. Everything’s all right.’

‘Where are you? What happened …?’

‘It’s okay. Trust me. The meeting. With the man from the
monastery
. Where were we supposed to meet him?’

‘Plaza de Cibeles.’ She spelt it out for him. ‘It’s a big square, with a fountain, not far from the hotel. Ten minutes’ walk or so, but … where are you?’

‘Later. I’ll tell you everything later. The important thing now is to meet our man as we agreed.’

‘Okay, but what about you? What happened last night?’

‘I’ll meet you there. Leave the hotel in about ten minutes’ time. Tell them to put the bill on the credit card they took an imprint of
when we checked in and pick up my things from next door. There’s not much. Just trust me, Nazreem. Everything’s fine. It’ll be okay. It was just a misunderstanding. I’ll see you soon. Just be there. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ she said, feeling anything but. Something in his voice was telling her he was not alone. What did he mean ‘a
misunderstanding
’? She had hardly slept a wink all night, staring at her mobile, sitting in the hotel room, the connecting door to his open in case he should reappear unannounced, her head filled with visions of him chained to a radiator being tortured. She had fallen asleep around four a.m. and woken only when the cleaners opened the door to his room, saw the connecting door open, her sprawled half dressed across the bed, and had retreated rapidly out of misplaced tact.

That had been more than two anxious hours ago during which she had fussed and fretted and blamed herself for whatever might have happened to him, half praying for his safe return, half afraid that the only God she had ever worshipped, and that with perhaps less assiduousness than many of her co-religionists, might react perversely to a prayer uttered only in adversity. But wasn’t adversity when most people prayed?

‘I, the Lord your God am a jealous God’, was part of Christianity’s sacred ten commandments. And there were both Christians and Muslims – albeit a minority – who said it was the same God, deep down, more or less? If the eternal omnipotent could be either ‘deep down’ or ‘more or less’. She didn’t want to think about it.

Nazreem knew she prayed in the same way some people crossed their fingers, more out of habit and superstition than true faith. She was a historian not a theologian. Yet wasn’t the situation she was in precisely the result of her historical tinkering with the basics of religion? She was challenging the gods. The gods, plural? Not the one God. Not Allah the Almighty but a perversion of the Christian version. Wasn’t she? She was searching for the truth. How dangerous was that?

She had dragged her hand through her hair and not for the first time in her life wished she smoked to give her distraction a focus. The television news had been full of nothing, unknown politicians, talking heads, speaking in a language she didn’t understand. Was this what it was like to live in a country where death and destruction were not part of the daily grind.

Then she remembered that the conflict that laid waste to her
homeland had scarred this city too. She had gone to the window and looked out at the early morning Madrid skyline and wondered how far she was from the stations where the bombs had exploded, and if the people here hated all Muslims because of them.

And then the phone had rung. The shrill warble of the mobile she had almost forgotten to turn on. And here she was minutes later throwing their things into the lightweight travelling bags they had picked up, with the spare clothing, at Stansted. Picking up Marcus’s spare socks, pants and shirt with all the domesticity of a woman
clearing
up after her man. Don’t go there, she told herself. What’s past is past. The relationship they had once had was a thing of another time, something to be remembered fondly but nothing to do with here or now. Yet, wasn’t that why she had trembled so much when she finally heard his voice again? She splashed water over her face in the
bathroom
and dragged a comb through her hair. Pull yourself together, woman; men have no power over you. Not any more.

The hotel clerk gave her a second look when she declared she was checking out for both of them on Marcus’s credit card even though he himself was not there. She turned down his offer of a taxi and she could feel his eyes on her back as she walked out the door, certain that it would not be long before he had conferred with the cleaning women and begun to conjure up stories she could scarcely imagine.

She consoled herself that the most likely conclusion to be drawn was of a lovers’ tiff, of a woman abandoned after some
passionate
argument, nothing that required the attention of the
authorities
. Unless something caused someone to come looking. She still worried that they had left Munich peremptorily only hours after telling the German police they would do no such thing. If she had learned one thing from her upbringing it was that the best
relationship
to have with the civil powers in a country that regarded you as an alien was none at all.

Their two small carry bags, even taken together, were not heavy, but they were inconvenient and she switched them from shoulder to shoulder alternately as she strode at a brisk space down the narrow streets that gradually broadened out as she approached the grand boulevards of the museum district. She glanced at her watch. There was still just over half an hour before they were due to meet the man who was apparently the link between Sister Galina and the abbot of Guadalupe.

The thought sobered her. It was possible – probable? – that whoever had seized the nun within hours of their meeting was also responsible for Marcus’s disappearing act the night before. But if so, why had they let him go? Or was she just imagining things? Could it just have been that in those minutes when she had taken him at his word that he was visiting the bathroom he had gone off on some agenda of his own? But what and why? Maybe it was all nonsense; maybe he had just met some girl, that was why he had been so odd on the phone, he had met some cheap floozie and gone off with her? Why not, he was a free agent, wasn’t he? She could feel herself getting flustered and told herself it was because even the suggestion was preposterous.

But the only alternative that she could think of was that he had been kidnapped. And then released? As what, a warning? Why would they not have held him? Held him as they were holding the nun. As they had to be. Surely. Held him to ransom? As they were holding her? Yet ransom was impossible if the demand could not be delivered. Was that what had happened to Marcus? She needed to hear his story. But deep down, she knew also, she had to tell him the rest of hers.

Marcus handed his phone back to the big Texan who was
watching
him carefully. He resented the idea that this man who had kidnapped him ‘for his own good’, in the cause of some crackpot fundamentalist Christian conspiracy theory, was in even temporary control of his life. The man had refused point blank to let Marcus call Nazreem in private, in fact had insisted on hearing every word of both sides of the conversation. But then again both the Mexicans José and Alfredo, ‘Joseph and Freddie’, were very visibly carrying guns. They had said they were letting Marcus go. And he was not about to do anything to put them off the idea.

The Texan responded to his frown with a smile, unclipped his piggy-back listening device from Marcus’s phone: ‘Cibeles, eh? Your idea or his?’

‘Sorry?’

‘The meeting place – the fountain. Who suggested it? Your little “monkey” friend, I’m assuming? Geddit: monk – monkey.’

Marcus grimaced, but nodded in answer to the question.

‘I thought so. Well, when you get there take a good look at it, my friend. And ask yourself if it’s where a so-called man of God ought to choose for a rendezvous. Believe me, my friend, there’s
symbolism
in everything they do in this country.’

Marcus let it ride. He hadn’t a clue what the man was going on about, but he’d had enough theology, half-baked or otherwise, for one morning.

‘Just bear it in mind, that’s all I ask.’

Marcus nodded again. He had decided conversation with the Texan was easiest if kept to a minimum.

‘Now, we’re going to let you go, just like we said. No question about that. You can go and meet your little Arab girlfriend just like you told her you would. We’re men of our word.’ The remark did little to reassure Marcus. In his experience, even in the academic
world, when people said there was no question about something it was usually a preamble to raising one. He was not disabused.

‘There’s just one thing,’ the Texan added. ‘You’ll agree we haven’t treated you bad? I know, I know, you may think we were well out of line going to the extremes we did to talk to you alone, and maybe you’re right. Like I said, the Mexies here sometimes get a bit carried away, do things more like back home than our way. But in the end we’ve had a civilised chat and we’ve made a few points I hope you’ve taken on board.’

Marcus nodded. He wasn’t about to say anything that would stop him getting out of there as soon as absolutely possible.

‘Okay, good. And you understand that we want to get our hands on this evil idol for the best of reasons.’

‘I understand you have reasons you deeply believe in.’

The Texan eyed him a moment.

‘Okay, I guess that’ll do. I have a strong feeling that you’re gonna come around to our way of thinking pretty soon. But before we say goodbye right now, I’d like you to promise that you’ll keep in touch. It only takes a quick ring on your phone here. Remember we could be there to help as much as anything else. You’re involved in a
complicated
business here and you just might find there are more people interested in this so-called black Madonna than just us, people a whole lot nastier.’

Marcus wondered about that.

‘Okay,’ was all he said.

‘Okay? Then if you don’t mind I’d like you to swear it.’

Marcus shrugged. To get out of there right now he’d have sworn his own mother was the Virgin Mary. But before he could say
anything
the little reverend had produced a black, leather-clad volume with a gold cross on its cover.

‘An oath ain’t an oath unless it’s sworn on the Good Book. Take it in your right hand.’

Marcus looked at it as if it were a prop in a play but did as he was told.

‘Repeat after me: I, Marcus Frey, swear by the Holy Bible that I will keep Col Martin Jones aware of my whereabouts and reveal to him or the Reverend Henry Parker, here present, any information that may be of use in locating the statue discovered in Gaza and referred to as the black Madonna.’

It was absurd, surreal, yet the man absolutely meant it. The only people Marcus had ever seen swearing on a Bible were witnesses in a jury trial, and even then he found it hard to believe the ritual had any force or meaning for those who automatically performed it. Even so, as he repeated the formula with the book in his hand, the residual intimidatory power of religious ritual still sent a shiver down his spine. The Texan seemed satisfied.

‘Okay, José, as they say in the movies. Let’s take a ride downtown.’

The Mexicans appeared behind him and slipped a blindfold over his eyes held by elastic bands. Instinctively he brought his hands up to try to remove it, but found them held down by the Mexican in front of him, while a second blindfold, this time tied behind his head was placed over the first.

‘Easy on, easy on, guy,’ the Texan was saying. ‘There’s no issue here. It’s just a precaution … until we get to know you better.’ Marcus went silent. It wasn’t an acquaintance that on the evidence so far he was keen to build on. ‘That’s British Airways Club Class shuteye you’ve got under there. Nice and comfy. The other one’s just to keep it in place. Not too tight, Freddie.’

Minutes later, after a descent in a lift and a brief few steps in the open air – what sort of area was it, Marcus wondered to himself, where nobody noticed blindfolded men being led out? – he was eased into a cloth-upholstered back seat of a car that smelled of cheap pine air freshener. Marcus could imagine one of those horrid dangly things shaped like cardboard cut-out Christmas trees
suspended
from the rear-view mirror. He felt a heavy hand laid on his shoulder:

‘Okay, fella, good luck now. Remember what I said. It’s up to you what you do. But if you need any help, we won’t be far.’

Marcus contented himself with another nod. It wasn’t exactly the most reassuring thing he had ever heard. On the other hand, he had to admit that they hadn’t hurt him badly; he had been scared, but it had not been the nightmare he had feared he was awakening to when the drug wore off. There were madmen and madmen. Maybe even not everything they had said was as mad as it sounded, was it? Maybe he would find out.

It seemed like an hour, but it was probably not more than twenty minutes later at most when the Mexican in the back seat next to him – ‘Freddie’ – untied the cloth blindfold and told him he could
take off the other one. He pulled the satin up over his eyes – noting in passing the little BA logo that showed the Texan had been telling the truth about one thing anyhow – and let the already warm late morning sunlight wash over his field of vision.

They were on a main road, an inner-city dual carriageway, with heavy traffic all around. There was a pedestrian avenue lined with green trees in between the car-clogged roads. From what little he knew of Madrid’s geography, Marcus guessed they were on the Paseo de la Castellana, the city’s main north-south drag. Up ahead he could see an array of wedding cake buildings, one festooned with spiky antennae, which, as they drew closer, he realised formed four corners around a great central roundabout, in the centre of which was a statuary grouping spraying sparkling jets of water into the air.

‘Cibeles,’ said the driver, José, pronouncing it ‘See-bellies’ with the soft South American consonant that Marcus had noticed in the bar the night before. They came onto the roundabout and the car pulled in to the side of the road in front of the most fantastically turreted of the buildings around it. Alfredo opened the door and motioned for him to get out. Marcus stared up at the extraordinary building that towered above them. ‘Palacio de Communicaciones,’ said José who had obviously adopted the role of tour guide. The fountain is in the middle of the roundabout.’

‘Nice,’ said Marcus, flatly, getting out.

‘
Adiós, amigo
,’ said José.

‘
Adiós
yourself,’ said Marcus. ‘And don’t go drinking with your friend. He has bad taste in cocktails.’

José bared his white teeth and the car – a nondescript Seat clone of some Volkswagen model, the sort that could be seen in their
hundreds
in any Spanish traffic jam – growled off into the swarm
circling
the roundabout. Marcus thought for a moment he spotted a Barcelona number plate, but he couldn’t be sure, any more than he could be sure about the two Madrid-licensed black Mercedes that seemed to sandwich it as it left the roundabout.

Marcus stared up at the ‘communications palace’. It was a fantasy of Mediterranean neo-Gothic, a cross between a vampire’s palace and a white marble wedding cake. The equally extraordinary pile that was the Prado museum was not far away. But it was the
fountain
in the midst of a vast ornate marble sculpture ensemble in the middle of the busy traffic roundabout that was the spot chosen for
their meeting. An easy landmark to find, perhaps, as old Julio had suggested. Did it really have any more sinister symbolism? Marcus dismissed the thought as he was inclined to dismiss almost
everything
the Texan has said. Except for the threat.

His watch showed eleven-forty a.m. He waited for the lights to change to red and crossed to the centre of the roundabout. There was no sign of Nazreem yet, or of the man from the monastery, or, as far as he could tell, of religious fundamentalists, Christian or Islamic, lurking with him in their crosshairs, although of that he was by no means certain. Above him, however, loomed the statue he had been told to pay close attention to.

It was certainly hard to ignore and a significant enough piece of monumental sculpture to be a more than legitimate focus of a
tourist’s
attention. He thought he remembered vaguely that it was the place from where all distances in Spain were measured, like Charing Cross, in London, or the imbedded cross on the Place du Parvis outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Certainly it was an impressive affair: a well-built woman of noble bearing seated in a chariot, pulled by two huge stone lions that reminded him of Landseer’s cast-iron beasts in London’s Trafalgar Square, except that these were on the prowl. Behind the chariot two plump cherubic children played in its wake. The seated figure herself exuded an air of sedate majesty. Marcus wondered if it was meant to represent some historical figure and decided it was almost certainly mythical or allegorical.

He pulled out his phone and rang Nazreem’s number. It rang twice before she answered, with a whoop so enthusiastic that it seemed he was hearing it in stereo. And then he realised he was. She was only a dozen metres or so away, on the other side of the traffic on the edge of the green sward of the Paseo del Prado. He put his phone back in his pocket and waved to her, with both arms, a good old-fashioned South African rugby supporter’s wave. And then the traffic stopped for a red light and she was in his arms, all of a sudden, unexpectedly. And for a moment the whole world of religious fanatics, ancient statues and conspiracy theories seemed surreal and fantastical.

After a few seconds she pulled back and looked up at him in amazement as if scarcely believing he was still in one piece, unharmed and unmarked. A flood of questions spilled forth. ‘What happened? Are you all right? Why didn’t you …?

He could not tell if she was going to kiss him or hit him. Marcus put his finger to his lips.

‘I was drugged. Kidnapped.’

‘Wha …!?’

‘I know, I know. You won’t believe me. Nutters, but American nutters,’ her jaw dropped open.

‘But it’s okay. Look they haven’t hurt me.’

‘Yes but …’

‘l’ll tell you everything later. But our man is going to get here any moment, and I need your help on something.’

She stood back and stared at him uncertainly: ‘You do?’

He nodded. ‘This fountain,’ he said, gesturing with an arm to indicate the great structure that dominated the square. ‘What do you know about it? And more specifically what do you know about the lady in the chariot? I had assumed it was supposed to be some sort of female personification of Spain, but now I’m not sure.’

Nazreem was staring at him as if he had lost control of his senses. ‘Why? What does it matter?’

‘The guide book, the green Michelin, the one we picked up at the airport. You have it? Quick.’

‘Yes, but …’

She fumbled in her bag, and produced it. Marcus snatched it off her impatiently and flicked through to the section on Madrid and the reference to the fountain, paraphrasing rapidly aloud as he went:
‘… dates from late eighteenth century… time of classical revival … the playing children a romantic affectation added later…
Here we go: …
seated sculpture of goddess of fertility and of the earth, known to the ancient Romans as Ceres, derivation of modern English “cereal”,
yes, yes, yes …
also to ancient Greeks as Demeter, but in this incarnation taking the form of the Phrygian goddess Cibele and known popularly to Madrileños as Cibeles.’

He tried pronouncing it both ways, ‘See-bellies,’ like the Mexican had said, or ‘Thibelehs’, as the locals did. Either way it meant nothing to him, except that the rednecks had been right about the old man choosing a pagan goddess as a rendezvous point. And where the hell was Phrygia anyhow, he wondered aloud.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Nazreem suddenly. ‘Let me see that.’ She grabbed the book from his hand, read the name again, and looked up at the great seated statue with a new recognition.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘That hat is wrong, but it is her okay. You were right, Marcus, it is all a matter of pronunciation. The problem is the Latin alphabet, the letter ‘c’. To the ancient Greeks there was no such thing. It led to less confusion.’

‘What?’

Nazreem was standing stock still staring up at the great piece of neoclassical statuary:

‘Not “c”,
kappa
– “k”. Her real name is Kybele. I have been looking everywhere for her.’

He turned to her, dumbstruck: ‘You have?’